HANYS Statement on the RAND Corporation Single Payer Study

Statement by Bea Grause, RN, JD, President, Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS)

ALBANY, NY — HANYS has long supported efforts to increase access to services and achieve universal health insurance coverage. The RAND Corporation report, An Assessment of the New York Health Act, confirms the complexities that come with designing and implementing a single payer-model along with several important concerns that New York’s hospitals and health systems have about moving toward such a model.

These concerns include: a tenuous financing model that requires unprecedented federal support and new state taxes; suppression of reimbursement for hospitals and health systems; and perhaps most importantly, a lack of evidence that a single-payer system would improve patient care quality.

This report underscores that a thoughtful, fact-based approach must be taken to thoroughly understand and debate the impact of a single-payer system on consumers, taxpayers, healthcare providers, government, other stakeholders, and all New Yorkers.

TheHealthcare Association of New York State(HANYS) is the only statewide hospital and continuing care association in New York State, representing hundreds of non-profit and public hospitals, nursing homes, home care agencies, and other healthcare organizations.